Course Title: New Media 1: Perspectives or New Media Perspectives
Semester: Spring 2010
Semester Hours: 3
Course #: NMC*101
CRN#: 1205
Meeting Times: MW 10:00-11:20 AM
Room: 6-201
INSTRUCTORS
Ersinghaus, Timmons
CONTACT AND OFFICE HOURS
Steve Ersinghaus
Office: F19
Phone: 255.3647
Email: sersinghaus at txcc.commnet.edu
Office Hours: TBA
John Timmons
Office: F1
Phone: 255.3742
Email: jtimmons at txcc.commnet.edu
Office Hours: TBA
REQUIRED TEXTS
Required texts are indicated on the Course Calendar.
REQUIRED MATERIALS
Students will be required to purchase a flash drive for storing and saving media files. 8 Gig flash drives are now priced about 20 dollars. In addition, students will need a Digication account, a notebook, and other materials necessary for building new media products.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
What qualities do video games, comics, films, and computer simulations share? New Media Perspectives considers this question by examining the underlying structures and interrelated qualities of various media and communication technologies. Students will study selected text-based stories, films, video games, simulations, comics, visual art, and web design. Students will apply what they learn by developing hypertexts, digital stories, and games. The course will also address questions such as: what is new media? How does human experience shape the design of technology? What is interactivity?
ATTENDANCE
As with any college course, attendance is critical to keeping up with assignments, material, and discussion, and with maintaining a coherent learning experience. New Media Perspective covers lots of ground, and too many missed classes, 4 at most, will result in gaps in knowledge.
DECORUM
The instructors for this course believe strongly in being on time and hat students not enter the class room when the door to the classroom has been closed. We discourage leaving class also while class is in session. In New Media studies, courtesy is appreciated.
Ability-based Education
Tunxis faculty and staff have identified a set of specific abilities ( skills and knowledge ) that students should develop in a successful and well-rounded education. We believe that ten of these abilities, the general-education abilities, are necessary for all students to be successful at work, in future education, and as citizens. In every college-level course at Tunxis, students will be assessed on at least one general-education ability as well as abilities that are specific to the course. Students in professional programs will also be assessed on abilities that are important to that profession. On some assignments, students will receive feedback on the degree to which they have mastered certain abilities. When this happens, students will receive a rating of 1 (Not Satisfactory), 2 (Satisfactory), or 3 (Distinguished) and an explanation for the rating. The goal will be to let students know where they stand at a specific time and what they need to do in order to improve in these abilities. We are convinced that development of these abilities, and the general-education abilities in particular, is critical to students’ success in all aspects of life.
Assessed Course Abilities:
Project Building
D. Applies inter-disciplinary concepts, ideas, and tools in communication contexts
Level 1: Identifies media interrelationships and associated concepts
New Media Literacy
A. Describes, evaluates, and compares systems
Level 1: Observes and accurately describes the use and properties of a traditional and digital system
B. Effectively communicates new media concepts, experiences, and their contexts
Level 1: Builds effective media experiences and new media objects using multiple modes of expression
C. Selects, manipulates, and integrates digital and traditional media in appropriate contexts
Level 1: Describes the affective qualities and structural elements of a traditional and digital media form
Assessed General Education Abilities:
1. Communication
1.1 Uses basic techniques of the medium to communicate in assigned task.
2. Critical Thinking
2.1 Identifies and analyzes relationships, draws and justifies reasonable inferences and conclusions; demonstrates evidence of insight through reflection.
4. Technological Literacy
4.1 Appropriately and effectively uses technology to accomplish assigned tasks
EVALUATION
Students will generate assignments evaluated against the course and General Education abilities. These will be included in the Digication electronic portfolio system.
The New Media Portfolio
The New Media Portfolio will include all of your work completed for the course, including:
1. Representing Space (10 %) (Self-Assessment goes in ePortfolio)
2. Trend Watch Reports (40 %) and the Past, Present, and Future (10 %) projects. Each end-of-month report will be uploaded into the ePortfolio system in a “Page” under your New Media Communication “Section.”
3. Observing Systems Assessment (10 %) (ePortfolio)
4. Linking Ideas Assessment (10 %) (Self-Assessment goes into ePortfolio with link to Emberlight)
5. Interactive Fiction Game Assessment (10 %) (Linked to Parchment document in ePortfolio with a description of the game)
6. ePortfolio (10 %)
Please find a model for how to design your ePortfolio here: Model Portfolio
GRADING SCALE
1 = D and F
2 = C-/B+
3 = A
SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
During the course of the semester, students might want to experience works from the list below. Some of these will be mentioned on the syllabus as relevant to a particular topic. Excerpts of these works may be required, while the work in its entirety may be experienced over a weekend. For instance, a computer game or simulation such as Syberia and The Sims would be difficult to complete in a semester.
Films: The Godfather, Sliding Doors, Groundhog Day, Minority Report, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Garden State, 12 Monkeys, Lone Star, Final Destination 3 (Special Feature DVD).
Games: Monopoly, Life, Syberia I and II, Doom, The Sims, Myst, Civilization, Half-Life 2.
Stories and novels: The Diamond Age, Hopscotch, afternoon, a story,
Sequential Art: Moore and Gibbons, Watchmen, Moore et al, Tomorrow Stories Book 1, Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
SOME IDEAS
Today the fundamental concepts and tools of new media, such as laptop computers and networks, are influencing nearly all areas of life. They influence the way we build buildings (where are the broadband cables threaded?), entertain ourselves, market products, conduct business, teach, tell stories, collaborate, and create works of art. Education, entertainment, business, communications, science, engineering, the creative arts–all are influenced by and are influencing digital computing and expression. No matter what your plans for the future, some aspect of new and traditional media will play a role; you may even be considering a career in a new media field.
New Media Perspectives, in a lot of ways, is about definitions and questions. “What is new media?” is just one of them. Here are a few more: What are the criteria that we use to define new media; what characteristics do new media and traditional media share: that is, how is a film related to a game? Moreover, how do the narrative structures of new and traditional media shape the way we interpret them?
In this course your instructors will be coming at the idea and forms of new media from a lot of directions, one of the most important being a continual reflection on what has come before and what is still influencing contemporary communications, creative production, social media, collaboration, art, business, how people work together to shape understandable and meaningful media experiences, and how past and current work in art, games, film, business, design, architecture, and programming may guide our thinking about the future. It should be an interesting tour.
INCOMPLETES
Requests for an incomplete must meet the college’s criteria (see below) and must be put to the instructors in writing one week prior to the end of the semester and an Incomplete Grade Agreement.
Incomplete grades may be given when the instructor determines that the student has completed 80 percent of the course work or when extraordinary circumstances have arisen which prevent the student from completing course requirements within the prescribed time limits. It is the student’s responsibility to arrange with the instructor the conditions under which an incomplete will be made up. Additionally, the student and instructor must sign an Incomplete Grade Agreement, available in the Records Office that identifies the specific work to be completed. The agreement must be filed in the Records Office.
An incomplete must be made up by the end of the fourth week of the following full semester (fall or spring). Deadline dates appear in the Calendar portion of course catalogs and on the Tunxis Web site.
An incomplete that is not made up within the time limits set above will be converted to an “F” grade at the end of the following fall or spring semester.”
ACADEMIC HONESTY
One of the greatest sins that can be committed in education is an act of plagiarism:
1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone’s words or ideas as if they were your own”
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=plagiarism)
Anyone caught plagiarizing in this course will face one of the following penalties (based upon my determination of the seriousness of the offense):
A warning and a grade of “0″ or “F” for that assignment;
A grade of “0″ or “F” for the course;
Disciplinary action by the Dean of Student Services and/or the Dean of Academic Affairs.
If you choose to include quotes from the work of others be sure to properly cite the source. At least do the following:
Put the quote within double quotations;
Cite your source within parentheses (author, book, and page number or the address of the Web site).
Example:
“The convenience of merely pressing the button resulted in a deluge of largely unexceptional pictures.” (Rosenblum, A World History of Photography, 3rd Edition, page 259)
For more information about properly citing sources contact the Tunxis Library.
The instructors reserve the right to edit or modify this syllabus at any time.
New Media Perspectives – Fall 2009